Normally, I prefer to read a novel and watch the movie after but this time it was the other way around. I watched the movie a while ago and I did not really enjoy it but I knew that the novel was highly recommended so I wanted to give it another try.It is an exceptional and very wise story. I felt that you have to take some time to read it because it is kind of philosophic at times. I enjoy books that make you think about life and this one also focuses on God and the different religions. It is very clever and I liked the frame story as it makes you wonder what really happened.Having finished the novel I feel the movie did not do it justice, the adventure on the sea only starts about one third into the novel and there is so much more to it than just pretty lights and a dangerous tiger but then again would it even be possible to capture something in a movie that everyone understands differently? ( )

Life of pi is a serious piece of JUNK. even if there was a scale of 100 I would still give it a score of 1.

The author is not great in storytelling. But thats ok if the story is good. Life of pi is a VERY SLOW PACED NOVEL. I stopped reading it many times but then forced myself to complete it since everyone had given such good reviews.

---- SPOILERS BELOW ----the story simply goes like this: theres a boy whose name is patel piscene (or something like that) so everyone calls him pissing. So he has shortened his name to pi.

hes going on a ship with his family and the ship crashes. He survives on a life boat with some animals. (This happens after 1/3rd of the book is complete). Now our story is supposed to begin.

Some unbelievable events happen like him finding a treasure chest (which contains a huge list of elementary supplies like 132 half liter cans of water, vomiting bags etc). The author summarizes what he has now.. we see a huge list of items. The last item on the list is "1 god".

(At this point I simply skipped a 100 pages and noticed that it doesn't make much difference in the thrill of the novel. You start reading and don't feel you've missed something. Its all a huge load of rubbish)

He finds an island made of bananas, has a conversation with god (with god giving vague "one liners" or "one word answers") and finally gets rescued. The resuers don't buy his story of how he survived with animals and met god. So he tells them another story in which instead of animals there are people and there is no god. They still don't believe him. So he tells them "either way you don't believe my story. so which one do you find more fascinating the one with god or the one without?" And they say "the one with god".

And so the book compels the reader to believe in god. Its a load of bull. In fact you can directly skip to the last chapter and you'll still know the complete story.( )

The story is engaging and the characters attractively zany. Piscine Molitor Patel (named after a family friend's favourite French swimming pool) grows up in Pondicherry, a French-speaking part of India, where his father runs the local zoo. Pi, Hindu-born, has a talent for faith and sees nothing wrong with being converted both to Islam and to Christianity. Pi and his brother understand animals intimately, but their father impresses on them the dangers of anthropomorphism: invade an animal's territory, and you will quickly find that nearly every creature is dangerous

Granted, it may not qualify as ''a story that will make you believe in God,'' as one character describes it. But it could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life -- although sticklers for literal realism, poor souls, will find much to carp at.

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity — it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.

Evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.

I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality.

Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food is low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured.

Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating it when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious.

It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while… [S]urely we are … permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation

We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man. In a general way we mean how our species' excessive predatoriness has made the entire planet our prey. More specifically, we have in mind the people who feed fishhooks to the otters, razors to the bears, apples with small nails in them to the elephants and hardware variations on the theme: ballpoint pens, paper clips, safety pins, rubber bands, combs, coffee spoons, horseshoes, pieces of broken glass, rings, brooches and other jewellery (and not just cheap plastic bangles: gold wedding bands, too), drinking straws, plastic cutlery, ping-pong balls, tennis balls and so on. The obituary of zoo animals that have died from being fed foreign bodies would include gorillas, bison, storks, rheas, ostriches, seals, sea lions, big cats, bears, camels, elephants, monkeys, and most every variety of deer, ruminant and songbird. Among zookeepers, Goliath's death is famous; he was a bull elephant seal, great big venerable beast to two tons, star of his European zoo, loved by all visitors. he died of internal bleeding after someone fed him a broken beer bottle.

My story started on a calendar day--July 2nd, 1977--and ended on a calendar day--February 14th, 1978--but in between there was no calendar. I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time.

Last words

Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.

Wikipedia in English (2)

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship in the Pacific, one solitary lifeboat remains, carrying a hyena, a zebra, a female orangutan, a Bengal tiger, and a 16-year-old Indian boy named Pi. His story is a dazzling work of imagination that will delight and astound listeners in equal measure. It is a triumph of storytelling and a tale that will as one character puts it, make you believe in God. (from PPL catalog record)

Haiku summary

Boat on the oceanWas there really a tiger?We will never know.(mamajoan)

Life of Pi is the adult book selection for 2004. Life of Pi is a daring, redemptive tale of adventure and survival where the most unusual Pi manages to survive on a lifeboat with a 450-pound Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker.